In revising the distribution and conservation status of Jasminum in Thailand, a new species, Jasminum bhumibolianum Chalermglin, was discovered in NE Thailand. It is described and illustrated and its conservation status is assessed as Critically Endangered.

Keywords: Critically Endangered; Jasminum; OLEACEAE; Thailand

Similar to Jasminum extensum and J. pierreanum in its leaves, Jasminum bhumibolianum is different from them in its calyx lobes 3–4 mm long (not 0.25–1 mm long), its short corolla 12–15 mm long (not 15–22 mm long) and its broader corolla lobes 3–4 mm wide (not 1–2 mm wide).

Etymology. The species is dedicated to His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej on his 84th anniversary in recognition of the great efforts he has made to conserve native plants in Thailand.

Distribution — Endemic to Loei Province, north-eastern Thailand. Known only from the type locality.

A new species of the genus Aceratherium, A. porpani sp. nov., from the Tha Chang sand pits in Nakhon Ratchasima Province, northwestern Thailand, is described. It is a mid-sized rhinocerotid in the subfamily Aceratheriinae, and represents the ﬁrst discovery of Aceratherium in Thailand. The material includes a well-preserved skull and mandible. A. porpani has broadly separated parietal crests, slightly expanded zygomatic arches, a straight nuchal crest, moderate supraorbital tuberosities, a ﬂat skull roof, a deep nasal notch above the P4/M1 boundary, a moderately wide mandibular symphysis with a posterior border at the p3/p4 boundary, a short diastema between i2 and p2, absence of DP1 and dp1, strong crochets, constricted molar protocones, and long metalophs. This new species has a mixture of primitive and derived characters that differ from the known species of Aceratherium, A. incisivum, and A. depereti. The evolutionary stage of A. porpani is consistent with the latest Miocene age of the associated fauna and ﬂora in the Tha Chang sand pits.

Etymology: In honor of Porpan Vachajitpan, who donated the studied holotype and paratype specimens of this new species

Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn was listening to the introduction of Dr. Deng about the holotype skull

Tao Deng, Rattanaphorn Hanta and Pratueng Jintasakul. 2013. A new species of Aceratherium (Rhinocerotidae, Perissodactyla) from the late Miocene of Nakhon Ratchasima, northeastern Thailand. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. 33 (4): 977–975. doi: dx.doi.org/10.1080/02724634.2013.748058.

Aceratherium porpani: New Late Miocene Species of Hornless Rhino from Thailand

Paleontologists have identified a new species of hornless rhino from fossil skull and mandible found in the Tha Chang area, Nakhon Ratchasima Province, Thailand.

In the Tha Chang area, Nakhon Ratchasima Province, Thailand, several sand pits previously have yielded fossils. The area is 220 km northeast of Bangkok, and the sand pits are located next to the Mun River. The sedimentary sequence of these sand pits consists of unconsolidated mudstone, sandstone, and conglomerate, deposited by the ancient Mun River. Almost all the fossils have been found and collected by local villagers working in these sand pits, and they have been brought to public institutions such as Nakhon Ratchasima Rajabhat University. Consequently, precise field information is unavailable for most of the fossils from the Tha Chang area, including the type mandible of the recently described new hominoid Khoratpithecus piriyai.

Dr. DENG Tao from Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP), Chinese Academy of Sciences, and his Thai colleagues from Nakhon Ratchasima Rajabhat University studied the rhino fossils collected from the Tha Chang sand pits and described them as a new species of the subfamily Aceratheriinae, Aceratherium porpani sp. nov. Its holotype is an adult skull without premaxillae and the anterior portion of nasals, and its paratype is an almost complete mandible. Her Royal Highness Princess Sirindhorn of Thailand was interested in this study and watched the holotype of A. porpani when Dr. Deng and his Thai colleagues studied these fossils in Nakhon Ratchasima. The study is published online June 26, 2013 in Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.

Phylogenetic relationships near the origin of extant crocodylians are weakly supported, and this lack of resolution makes for poor estimates of taxonomic and morphological diversity. Previously known taxa are found throughout the Cretaceous in Laurasia and at a few sites from Brazil, Australia, and northern Africa. Here, we report Batrachomimus pastosbonensis gen. et sp. nov. from the Late Jurassic of northeastern Brazil, which is deeply nested within Neosuchia and associated to the Cretaceous Asian paralligatorids. The new taxon predates all other members of Paralligatoridae and its immediate sister group (including Eusuchia) by 30 million years. A nearly complete skull, osteoderms, and limb bones were recovered, and autapomorphies of B. pastosbonensis include a scalloped lateral margin of the rostrum in dorsal view, unsculpted alveolar margin at the caudalmost portion of the maxilla, blunt lateral prongs on the jugal at the base of the postorbital bar, hourglass shaped choanae, and pterygoid choanal septum extended between the palatal shelves of the palatines. The crocodyloid-like skull proportions and the slender, conical teeth suggest an amphibious and piscivorous life history to this 1 m long animal.

Etymology: The genus name Batrachomimus means "batrachian mimic" in Greek, a reference to the holotype specimen originally being identified as that of a temnospondyl, a type of prehistoric amphibian that vaguely resembles modern batrachians - frogs and toads. In addition to being considered a temnospondyl, the holotype was thought to have come from the Pedra de Fogo Formation, which dates back to the Permian, a time when temnospondyls were the dominant form of large semi-aquatic animals. The genus name also alludes to crocodyliforms replacing temnospondyls as semi-aquatic predators during the Jurassic.

Researchers from the Laboratory of Paleontology, Faculty of Philosophy, Sciences and Letters of Ribeirão Preto (FFCLRP) USP, just published the description of the first Jurassic tetrapod fossils collected in Brazil. The material was discovered in May 2012 in the state of Maranhão, and it is a crocodiliforme (group of living alligators and crocodiles, as well as some of their extinct relatives) called Batrachomimus pastosbonesis.

It has been previously established that the Leopard Whipray, Himantura leoparda, consists of two genetically isolated, cryptic species, provisionally designated as ‘Cluster 1’ and ‘Cluster 4’ (Arlyza et al., Mol. Phylogenet. Evol. 65 (2013) [1]). Here, we show that the two cryptic species differ by the spotting patterns on the dorsal surface of adults: Cluster-4 individuals tend to have larger-ocellated spots, which also more often have a continuous contour than Cluster-1 individuals. We show that H. leoparda's holotype has the typical larger-ocellated spot pattern, designating Cluster 4 as the actual H. leoparda. The other species (Cluster 1) is described as Himantura tutul sp. nov. on the basis of the nucleotide sequence of a 655-base pair fragment of its cytochrome-oxidase I gene (GenBank accession No. JX263335). Nucleotide synapomorphies at this locus clearly distinguish H. tutul sp. nov. from all three other valid species in the H. uarnak species complex, namely H. leoparda, H. uarnak, and H. undulata. H. tutul sp. nov. has a wide distribution in the Indo-West Pacific, from the shores of eastern Africa to the Indo-Malay archipelago. H. leoparda under its new definition has a similarly wide Indo-West Pacific distribution.

Etymology: We chose as epithet of the new species the Malay word tutul, which means “spotted” and which designates the spots of the leopard, Panthera pardus (“macan tutul” in Malay language). Thus, the new species was named after the leopard-like markings on the dorsal surface of large specimens (> 1000 mm DW). We propose as the English vernacular name: Fine-spotted Leopard Whipray, to distinguish it from the Leopard Whipray, Himantura leoparda, which has larger spots. We propose as the French vernacular name raie léopard à petites taches and as the Malay vernacular name pari tutul kecil.

A new species from Brazil —Pionopsitta aurantiocephala — is described, which is easily distinguished from the other species of that genus by its completely bare, intensely orange colored head. Specimens of this species have been historically identiﬁed as immatures of P. vulturina, which occur in simpatry with P. aurantiocephala on the Middle Tapajo´ s River and possibly on the Lower Madeira River. The description of a new species of Psittacidae stresses the importance of new studies in the regions of the Madeira and Tapajo' s rivers.

Etymology. The proposed name is designed to highlight the diagnostic orange bare-headed characteristic of the species.

Saturday, July 27, 2013

Due to their ability to change color, anole lizards are frequently referred to as American chameleons. Also, because they can run up walls, they are sometimes confused with geckos. Not closely related to either of those groups, in fact, they are more closely related to iguanas.

The evolutionary origins of Madagascar's biodiversity remain mysterious despite the fact that relative to land area, there is no other place with consistently high levels of species richness and endemism across a range of taxonomic levels. Most efforts to explain diversification on the island have focused on geographical models of speciation, but recent studies have begun to address the island's accumulation of species through time, although with conflicting results. Prevailing hypotheses for diversification on the island involve either constant diversification rates or scenarios where rates decline through time. Using relative-time-calibrated phylogenies for seven endemic vertebrate clades and a model-fitting framework, I find evidence that diversification rates have declined through time on Madagascar. I show that diversification rates have clearly declined throughout the history of each clade, and models invoking diversity-dependent reductions to diversification rates best explain the diversification histories for each clade. These results are consistent with the ecological theory of adaptive radiation, and, coupled with ancillary observations about ecomorphological and life-history evolution, strongly suggest that adaptive radiation was an important formative process for one of the most species-rich regions on the Earth. These results cast the Malagasy biota in a new light and provide macroevolutionary justification for conservation initiatives.

Madagascar has long been known as a hotspot of biodiversity. Although it represents only one percent of the earth's area, it is home to about three percent of all animal and plant species on the planet. But research suggests the island's heyday of species development may be all but over.

"A staggering number of species are found only on Madagascar," said Daniel Scantlebury, a Ph.D. student in biology, "but this research shows there are limits to the number of species the island can sustain, and Madagascar may currently be at those limits."

Scantlebury's paper is being published this week in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

A new species of lowland karst dwelling Cnemaspis Strauch 1887, C. grismeri sp. nov. is described from the southeastern base of the Banjaran Bintang in northern Peninsular Malaysia. It is differentiated from its congeners by a unique combination of characters including size, coloration and scalation. Cnemapis grismeri sp. nov. is most closely related to C. mcguirei, an upland species endemic to the Banjaran Bintang. This phylogeographic pattern is also seen in the upland and lowland Banjaran Bintang species of Cyrtodactylus bintangtinggi and C. bintangrendah, respectively (Grismer et al. 2012). The discovery of yet another endemic gekkonid in the poorly explored karst regions of Peninsular Malaysia underscores the necessity for concentrated collecting efforts in these unique landscapes.

We describe a new species of the genus Cyrtodactylus based on five adult specimens from Dai Lanh Cape, Tuy Hoa District, Phu Yen Province, southern Vietnam. Cyrtodactylus kingsadai sp. nov. is distinguished from the remaining Indochinese bent-toed geckos by a combination of the following characters: maximum SVL of 94 mm; dorsal pattern consisting of a dark nuchal loop, continuous or partly interrupted neck band and four in part irregulartransverse body bands between limbs; internasal single; dorsal tubercles in 17–23 irregular transverse rows; ventrals in 39–46 longitudinal rows at midbody; lateral skin folds present, without interspersed tubercles; precloacal pores 7–9 plus in total 3–7 femoral pores in males (1-4 femoral pores on each side) with precloacal and femoral pore series separated from each other by 7–9 poreless scales; enlarged femoral scales and precloacal scales present; postcloacal spurs three;subcaudal scales transversely enlarged. This is the 29th species of Cyrtodactylus known from Vietnam.

Description of a new species of Burmese vipers of genus Azemiops Boulenger, 1888 (Reptilia: Ophidia: Viperidae: Azemiopinae) from northeast Vietnam and southeast China is given. It leads to changing the status of the monotypic genus Azemiops. Critical analysis of literature for all period of study and analysis of distribution of two species of Azemiops genus as well as natural history data are discussed.

Agriculturally altered vegetation, especially oil-palm plantations, is rapidly increasing in Southeast Asia. Low species diversity is associated with this commodity, but data on anuran diversity in oil-palm plantations are lacking. We investigated how anuran biological diversity differs between forest and oil-palm plantation, and whether observed differences in biological diversity of these areas is linked to specific environmental factors. We hypothesized that biological diversity is lower in plantations and that plantations support a larger proportion of disturbance-tolerant species than forest. We compared species richness, abundance, and community composition between plantation and forest areas and between site types within plantation and forest (forest stream vs. plantation stream, forest riparian vs. plantation riparian, forest terrestrial vs. plantation terrestrial). Not all measures of biological diversity differed between oil-palm plantations and secondary forest sites. Anuran community composition, however, differed greatly between forest and plantation, and communities of anurans in plantations contained species that prosper in disturbed areas. Although plantations supported large numbers of breeding anurans, we concluded the community consisted of common species that were of little conservation concern (commonly found species include Fejervarya limnocharis, Microhyla heymonsi, and Hylarana erythrea). We believe that with a number of management interventions, oil-palm plantations can provide habitat for species that dwell in secondary forests.

Oil palm plantations in Malaysia are causing threatened forest frogs to disappear, paving the way for common species to move in on their turf, scientists have revealed.

The study, carried out by the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) describes how forests converted to palm oil plantations are causing threatened forest dwelling frogs to vanish, resulting in an overall loss of habitat that is important for the conservation of threatened frog species in the region.

Scientists travelled to Peninsular Malaysia where they spent two years studying communities of frog species in four oil palm plantations and two areas of adjacent forest. The paper is published in the journal Conservation Biology.

Aisyah Faruk, PhD student at ZSL's Institute of Zoology says: "The impact we observed is different from that observed previously for mammals and birds. Instead of reducing the number of species, oil palm affects amphibian communities by replacing habitat suitable for threatened species with habitat used by amphibian species that are not important for conservation. This more subtle effect is still equally devastating for the conservation of biodiversity in Malaysia."

Amphibians are the most threatened vertebrates in the world, with over 40% at risk of extinction. The peat swamp frog (Limnonectes malesianus) is just one of the declining species threatened due to deforestation. It inhabits shallow, gentle streams, swampy areas, and very flat forests, laying eggs in sandy streambeds. Scientists only found this species in forest areas, and if palm oil plantations continue to take over, the peat swamp frog, along with its forest home, could be a thing of the past.

ZSL's Dr. Trent Garner, a co-author on the paper, says: "Existing practices in managing oil palm are not accommodating the highly threatened forest frog species in Malaysia which urgently need saving."

The planting of oil palm plantations leads to the loss of natural forests and peat lands and plays havoc with ecosystems and biodiversity. ZSL, together with collaborators from Queen Mary University of London, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia and University of Malaya, continues to work closely with Malaysian palm oil producers in determining if simple modifications to agricultural practices may bring some of the forest species back into areas planted with oil palm and allow them to survive and reproduce in plantations.

The third most vulnerable is the 'endangered' Sanje mangabey, threatened by direct hunting and habitat destruction, especially in unmanaged forests

Photo: Tim Davenport/WCS

Abstract

Priority Primate Areas are identified in Tanzania, mainland Africa's most important country for conservation of primates, on the basis of occupancy by globally rare, Red-Listed and range-restricted primate species and subspecies. We provide a comprehensive list and regional assessment of Tanzania's primate taxa, using IUCN Red List criteria, as well as the first national inventory of primates for 62 sites. The Priority Primate Areas, encompassing 102,513 km2, include nine national parks, one conservation area, seven game reserves, six nature reserves, 34 forest reserves and five areas with no official protection status. Primate species were evaluated and ranked on the basis of irreplaceability and vulnerability, using a combination of established and original criteria, resulting in a primate Taxon Conservation Score. Sites were ranked on the basis of summed primate scores. The majority (71%) of Priority Primate Areas are also Important Bird Areas (IBAs), or part of an IBA. Critical subsets of sites were derived through complementarity analyses. Adequate protection of just nine sites, including six national parks (Kilimanjaro, Kitulo, Mahale, Saadani, Udzungwa and Jozani-Chwaka Bay), one nature reserve (Kilombero) and two forest reserves (Minziro and Mgambo), totalling 8,679 km2, would protect all 27 of Tanzania's primate species. The addition of three forest reserves (Rondo, Kilulu Hill and Ngezi) and two game reserves (Grumeti and Biharamulo), results in a list of 14 Priority Primate Areas covering 10,561 km2 (1.1% of Tanzania's total land area), whose conservation would ensure the protection of all 43 of Tanzania's species and subspecies of primates.

New plan would create “Priority Primate Areas” to protect all 27 of Tanzania’s primate species and key habitats

The study combines Tanzania's first-ever inventory of all primate species and their habitats with IUCN Red List criteria and other factors such as threats and rarity, ranking all 27 species from most vulnerable to least vulnerable. The authors then identify a network of "Priority Primate Areas" for conservation.

The paper appears in the July 17 issue of the journal Oryx. Authors are Tim Davenport of the Wildlife Conservation Society, Katarzyna Nowak of the Udzungwa Elephant Project, and Andrew Perkin of the Tanzania Forest Conservation Group.

A third of Tanzania's primate species are found nowhere else on earth. The study found that the most vulnerable was the kipunji, first discovered by WCS in 2003 on Mt Rungwe and described by WCS as an entirely new genus in 2006. Another extremely vulnerable species is the Zanzibar red colobus, a species whose population is currently being counted by WCS. More common species include the baboons, black and white colobus monkeys and vervets.

The fossil record of centrosaurine ceratopsids is largely restricted to the northern region of western North America (Alberta, Montana and Alaska). Exceptions consist of single taxa from Utah (Diabloceratops) and China (Sinoceratops), plus otherwise fragmentary remains from the southern Western Interior of North America. Here, we describe a remarkable new taxon, Nasutoceratops titusi n. gen. et sp., from the late Campanian Kaiparowits Formation of Utah, represented by multiple specimens, including a nearly complete skull and partial postcranial skeleton. Autapomorphies include an enlarged narial region, pneumatic nasal ornamentation, abbreviated snout and elongate, rostrolaterally directed supraorbital horncores. The subrectangular parietosquamosal frill is relatively unadorned and broadest in the mid-region. A phylogenetic analysis indicates that Nasutoceratops is the sister taxon to Avaceratops, and that a previously unknown subclade of centrosaurines branched off early in the group's history and persisted for several million years during the late Campanian. As the first well-represented southern centrosaurine comparable in age to the bulk of northern forms, Nasutoceratops provides strong support for the provincialism hypothesis, which posits that Laramidia—the western landmass formed by inundation of the central region of North America by the Western Interior Seaway—hosted at least two coeval dinosaur communities for over a million years of late Campanian time.

A new species of the flying squirrel genus Biswamoyopterus is described from Lao PDR. It is based on a single specimen collected from a local food market at Ban Thongnami, Pak Kading District, Bolikhamxai Province. The new taxon shows close affinities to Biswamoyopterus biswasi, which is only known from the holotype collected in 1981, 1250 km from the current locality, in Arunachal Pradesh, Northeast India. However, it differs substantially in pelage colour, most particularly on the ventral surfaces of the body, patagia, tail membrane, and tail. The single specimen was found in an area of central Lao PDR, which is characterised by its extensive limestone karst formations and which is home to other rare endemic rodents, including the Kha-nyou (Laonastes aenigmamus) and the Lao limestone rat (Saxatilomys paulinae).

Key words: Southeast Asia, flying squirrel, taxonomy, bush meat

".. In September 2012, a team from the National University of Laos undertook a survey of flying squirrels in the informal food markets of northern, central and southern Lao PDR. In the market at Ban (village) Thongnami, Pak Kading District, Bolikhamxai Province, central Lao PDR (Fig. 1), they observed several species of Pteromyini including Hylopetes phayrei Blyth, Petaurista elegans Müller, and P. philippensis Elliot for sale as ‘bush-meat’. In addition, there was a female specimen of a large flying squirrel, which superficially resembled P. philippensis but differed in a number of external characters. On subsequent examination in the university museum, this individual was also found to have cranial and dental characters that clearly differentiated it not just from P. philippensis but from the genus Petaurista itself.

review of the literature confirmed that it was referable to the elusive genus Biswamoyopterus but that it differed specifically from B. biswasi. Therefore, it is described here as a new species to science, the second record of the genus, and the first record of the genus from Lao PDR and Southeast Asia..."

Molecular, chromosomal and morphometric analyses of wild-caught mice of subgenus Mus from the central plain of Thailand are presented. These specimens are distinct from all species previously described in the literature. This has led to the characterization of Mus fragilicauda sp. n., a new member of the set of closely related species encompassed by the subgenus. While this species may be considered as a sibling and sympatric species of the Asian M. cervicolor, M. fragilicauda sp. n. is phylogenetically closer to the M. musculus complex of species and to the other European species of Mus.

A new species of Annonaceae, Mitrephora sirikitiae, is described from Mae Hong Son Province in northern Thailand. It is easily distinguished from the seven species of Mitrephora previously recorded from Thailand due to its very large, showy flowers. It is most similar to M. winitii, but differs in its larger flowers, with inner petals that become undulate at maturity. The profuse blooming of the new species and its large flowers with mild fragrance suggest that may be of significant horticultural potential.

A new species of soldier crab (genus Mictyris Latreille, 1806) is described from the Andaman Sea coast of Thailand. Mictyris thailandensis sp. nov. differs morphologically from its described congeners by its pale plain colouring, the differently shaped apex of the male first gonopod, and by chela features. It also has significant genetic divergence (cytochrome oxidase I ≥ 11.95%) from other described species.